


New Beginnings

by tablelamp



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Married Couple Trying to Matchmake Past Selves That Hate Each Other, Matchmaking, Minor Spoilers Through Series Five, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24581086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tablelamp/pseuds/tablelamp
Summary: Time, in Dave Lister's experience, is a total smeghead.
Relationships: Dave Lister/Arnold Rimmer
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	1. Back in Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



Time, in Dave Lister's experience, is a total smeghead. Three million years passed in a heartbeat, and time's never made sense to him since. He's seen future events. He's gone back in time and lived through time moving backwards and changed history and changed it back again. Time's like the weather--it does what it does and you just have to cope.

So it isn't a surprise to him when he and Rimmer are talking about going on holiday and they round a corner and suddenly Red Dwarf is different.

"Oh, what now?" Rimmer asks irritably, looking round.

"Dunno," Lister says, glancing up and down the corridor. "But, erm, didn't the walls used to be this colour? Ocean gray?"

"Military gray," Rimmer corrects him, almost automatically. Then he pulls a face when he realises what he's done.

"Go on," Lister says playfully. "I love it when you talk paint colours."

Rimmer gives Lister a sly look, leaning closer to him. "Ultramarine. Cerulean. Beige."

Lister pretends to shiver. "Oh yeah, that's the stuff." He leans in for a quick kiss.

Rimmer makes the kiss a little less quick, but he's had almost as many dodgy experiences with time as Lister has, and the state of the walls seems to be distracting him. "Then it's the past."

Lister almost laughs. "Which one?"

"Holly?" Rimmer asks. "Are you there?"

Holly appears on a nearby monitor, and it's Holly before he upgraded himself to appear less pixelated. Holly 1.0 or summat like that. "What's happening then?"

"Nothing," Lister says. Sometimes when you're travelling in time, you can't tell anyone or the whole timeline goes to smeg. "We just wanted to say good morning."

"You called me away from important ship-flying computations to say good morning?" Holly asks.

Lister wonders if Holly's seen through his lie. "Yeah."

"Just checking," Holly says. "Good morning, Dave. Good morning, Arnold."

"Good morning, Holly," Rimmer says. "You're looking particularly..." He flounders a bit, and Lister hides a smile. "...energy-efficient today."

"Thanks," Holly says, looking surprised. "Must be the rerouted power from section six."

"Well, it suits you," Rimmer says.

"All right. What d'you want?" Holly asks.

"Nothing, Hol. Thanks. You can get back to your computations," Lister says. He knows Rimmer means well, but even now, he's not very good at compliments. Or keeping secrets.

"Right," Holly says, disappearing from view.

"It's got to be the first year with just us," Lister says. "Kryten hasn't remodelled yet, and Holly's, you know."

Rimmer nods. "I wonder where we are? Not us. I mean the us we were. Previously. The former us."

"Probably in the bunk room," Lister says. "I liked being there cos it was normal."

Rimmer looks puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"You and me, we were always in there," Lister says. "The rest of the ship made me think of everyone who used to be there."

"Ah," Rimmer says, looking at nothing in particular, remembering. "This was a bad time for me too."

Lister looks at him. "Really? Why?"

"Well, I was dead," Rimmer says. "I wasn't hard-light then, and I suppose I had a bit of an existential crisis about everything. Not having an impact on the world. Not having a future."

"Your future's all right," Lister says, nudging Rimmer with his arm.

Rimmer smiles at Lister. "It is now. But I didn't know that then." He gestures to their surroundings. "Now."

"You didn't," Lister says, "but what if you did?" He looks at Rimmer. "It took us ages to really find each other. What if we'd done it sooner?"

Rimmer takes a moment to think about this. "You're telling me you want to use our trip to the past to what? Push ourselves in the right direction?"

"Why not?" Lister asks.

"You mean other than erasing ourselves from the timestream?" Rimmer says.

Lister rolls his eyes. "If we haven't done that by now, Rimmer, how likely do you think it is?"

"We have done it," Rimmer says, "or have you forgotten the Inquisitor?"

"Okay, so we were erased from the timestream, but not permanently," Lister says. "I wouldn't suggest it if I thought something bad would happen."

Rimmer touches Lister's arm hesitantly, as though he can't quite believe he's allowed to do it. "I don't want to lose this you. I like this you." He still isn't good at talking about love. That's all right. Lister knows what he means.

"I like this you too," Lister says, touching Rimmer's hand. "But we don't even know if we're in the same universe we came from. We might be helping another us, an us that isn't properly us."

"Even if you're right," Rimmer says, "what's your plan?"

Lister shrugs. "Simple. I talk to me, you talk to you."

"Why wouldn't you talk to me and--?" Rimmer stops, apparently remembering that first year in a bit more detail. "Never mind, you're right."

Lister nods. "Why don't we meet here in a few hours and let each other know how it's going?"

"This is either the best or the worst idea you've ever had," Rimmer says.

"We'll know soon enough," Lister says. 

Rimmer looks like he wants to touch Lister, but he doesn't let himself this time. Lister wishes he would. "Be careful, Listy."

"You too," Lister says. "See you soon."

They nod to each other once--if they started kissing, they might be busy with that for a while--and then set off to find themselves.


	2. Giving Yourself a Talking-To

Lister's in the bunkroom, so Rimmer's in the drive room. That's been their routine lately, when they're not sniping at each other. Rimmer pretends he's going to the drive room to work, but more often than not, he stands there and stares out of the window. Lister's got a plan to go back to Earth, but what's Rimmer's plan? What's the point of making plans when he's utterly at the mercy of Holly and Lister and the shipboard projectors and a thousand other things he can't control?

"It's not as bad as that," says a voice from the doorway.

Rimmer hates being interrupted in the middle of an emotional moment, especially since he doesn't like admitting that he has emotional moments. "Oh really? And how would you--" He turns to see a person who looks very much like himself standing in the doorway. Himself, but with a few additional years. He didn't know holograms could age. That he could age. "--know?"

"I remember," the other Rimmer says, entering the drive room. "When I came here to think, I didn't often think about happy things."

Rimmer can't stop staring at himself. "Is this a trick?"

"No trick," the other Rimmer says. "I'm a future version of you."

Rimmer shakes his head. "I've done this once before. I hallucinated myself talking to me."

"That wasn't a hallucination," the other Rimmer says. "You'll live the other side of that conversation eventually."

Rimmer approaches his other self, who is wearing some sort of shiny blue jacket Rimmer doesn't recognise. "That jacket's not regulation."

The other Rimmer seems to be trying not to smile. "Not exactly, no."

Rimmer narrows his eyes. "What's funny?"

"I'd forgotten how..." The other Rimmer gestures to him. "...by-the-book I was. We were."

Rimmer's surprised that his future self finds his current self funny, but if he travelled back in time to meet his own past self, he's not sure how he would feel about him either. What would he say? What would he do? "You really are me?"

The other Rimmer nods. "I really am."

Rimmer's seen the future before, when Red Dwarf was experiencing future echoes, but he's never been able to talk to it. "Why are you here?"

"To help you," the other Rimmer says. "I remember this year."

So this year is exactly as bad as it feels, then. In a strange way, Rimmer finds that comforting. It's not just some glitch in his holographic brain patterns or a permanent inability to cope. "Ah."

"There's no need to be ashamed," the other Rimmer says quietly.

"I'm not ashamed!" Rimmer says, bristling a bit. "Shame is for cowards!"

"No, Arnold," the other Rimmer says. "Shame's just a feeling. Don't tell me you don't feel it, because we both know the truth."

Rimmer looks at his future self. His usual method of defense--attack as forcefully and continually as he can until he's left alone--won't work. His future self knows all his tricks. "All right. If we're telling the truth, I don't like you knowing these things about me."

"I know," the other Rimmer says with a nod.

"Get on with it, then. You didn't come all the way from the future to talk about our feelings," Rimmer says.

The other Rimmer considers this. "Actually, I did."

"You're not serious." The other Rimmer came from the future to...what? Give him some sort of therapy session? Rimmer doesn't like this at all. "My feelings are fine. There's nothing wrong with them."

The other Rimmer crosses his arms. "Have you forgotten I know when you're lying?"

Smeg. "Well, that's too bad. I don't want to talk about this, with you or anyone."

"You've got to," the other Rimmer says. "I know how unhappy you are."

"I'm not unhappy! Why should I be unhappy? I died without accomplishing anything I wanted to, my death and the deaths of almost everyone I knew are my fault, and now I'm trapped on board the ship I nearly destroyed, stuck with the biggest goit in history. Everything's peachy."

"It's not a failure not to be fine, you know. When you love someone, you need to be able to tell them when you're not fine," the other Rimmer says.

"When I--what?" Rimmer must've heard that wrong.

The other Rimmer has a look on his face that doesn't match anything Rimmer remembers feeling. "There's still a chance for you. But not if you avoid every connection you're offered."

Rimmer is having trouble getting his head round the enormity of what the other Rimmer is saying. "I love someone?" It comes out as a whisper.

The other Rimmer smiles, and he looks so obviously and openly happy that it hurts Rimmer a little. "Yes."

"Do--" Rimmer's voice cracks in his eagerness, and he takes a moment to try to project an air of suave sophistication. (He almost certainly fails, but since when has that ever stopped him?) "Do they love me?"

The other Rimmer smiles even more brightly. "They do."

"Oh," Rimmer says. He loves someone, and someone loves him back. He's dead, but good things can still happen. "Tell me who?" The other Rimmer hesitates. "Please?"

"You won't believe me," the other Rimmer says, shaking his head.

"Is it another hologram? Is it Kochanski?" He can't picture that, but it's possible.

The other Rimmer laughs. "No, it's not Kochanski."

Rimmer doesn't think it's all that funny to imagine Kochanski might fancy him. "Who, then?"

The other Rimmer gives Rimmer a far too meaningful look and says, "You know."

Oh, _smeg._ "No." Rimmer shakes his head. He's spent more than a year--or is it two years?--sharing a room, hiding, protecting himself, making sure Lister doesn't ever find out the truth. "He doesn't. He won't. You haven't heard him go on about Krissy this and Krissy that. Never mind that he's hardly spoken to her. He's not--he wouldn't be interested."

"I know your future," the other Rimmer says. "I've lived your future. You think I'd lie to us?"

"No," Rimmer says. "Sorry. It'll have to be someone else." He's so distracted he turns the wrong way and leaves the drive room through the wall, which is extremely disorientating and unpleasant, but he almost doesn't notice.

His future love can't be Lister because it isn't possible for Lister to love him. He accepted that a long time ago.

But he's still shaking.


	3. When One Door Closes, An Airlock Opens

Lister finds his past self repairing McCartney yet again. He hasn't thought about his robot goldfish in ages, and wonders where he put them. He'll have to get them out soon, for old times' sake.

"What happened?" Lister asks.

"Cat got at him," younger Lister says. "But he broke his tooth, so I think they'll both be safe for a bit." Then he looks up. "Oh no."

"It's all right," Lister says. "It's not future echoes. It's only me." He's got an easier job than Rimmer has; his younger self doesn’t often get worked up about things.

"You've got a bit, erm, old," younger Lister says, taking everything in stride.

Lister looks himself over. "I think we've held up all right, considering everything."

Younger Lister nods in agreement. "So what's happened? Have you got a super urgent message for me that'll change the whole universe as we know it?" But younger Lister can't keep a straight face, and erupts in laughter.

Lister smiles and shrugs; he doesn't begrudge his young self his sense of humour. "Life isn't like the vids. But I do have a message for you."

Younger Lister gets serious fast. "Is something coming I need to know about?"

"No." Lister reconsiders. "Actually, yeah, loads of things, but I don't know if I can tell you about them. It might change the future too much."

"At least give us a hint," younger Lister says. "Or better yet, don't tell me anything and stay. We can take turns annoying Rimmer. He'll hate that there's two of us."

Maybe this is going to be harder than Lister thought. He'd forgotten how bad things were between them then. Now. Whenever. "I can't stay. But I can tell you something about Rimmer."

Younger Lister's eyes practically light from the inside. "Yeah? Something embarrassing?"

"No," Lister says, feeling pity for the newly-dead Rimmer moping in the drive room. They'd been so ready to hurt each other, without any idea how far the hurt carried.

Younger Lister sighs. "Well, then what good is it?"

"You should try to get on with him," Lister says.

Younger Lister stares at him. "Are we talking about the same Rimmer? The one who comes in here and tells me everything he doesn't like about me on a daily basis?”

"I know it doesn't seem like it now," Lister says, "but you'll get on better one day."

"What happens? Does he have a personality transplant?" Younger Lister asks.

"No. Actually, sort of, but that's not the point. You're gonna need someone, and Cat's not a good choice," Lister says.

Younger Lister pulls a face. "Yeah, I know. When I was ill, Rimmer was the one who took me to the medical bay. Cat wouldn't help." He sighs, shaking his head. "Rimmer, though."

"Right," Lister says.

"So what do I do?" Younger Lister asks. "Do I just let him be a gimboid and not fight back?"

"No, I'm not saying that," Lister says. "Just try to listen."

"Listen?" Younger Lister looks unimpressed. Lister can't blame him. It doesn't seem like much in the way of advice, but when Lister had figured it out, it had changed a lot about the way he and Rimmer talked to each other.

"He tells you things all the time, in between the insults," Lister says. "Things he's scared of. Things he worries about."

Younger Lister seems to take that in. "Like being dead."

Lister nods. "You always try to make him feel better. He doesn't want that. He just wants someone to hear him."

"That's why I tell him things sometimes," younger Lister says. "Even if it's stupid. It's lonely with just us."

"I know," Lister says.

Younger Lister smiles. "Yeah, course you do." He thinks for a moment. "I can't promise it'll work, but I'll try."

"Thanks," Lister says, pleased this has gone so well. He turns to leave.

"Hey," younger Lister calls after him. "Are we all right, then?"

Lister nods. "We are. Promise."

Younger Lister looks reassured, but he can't seem to resist one more question. "How do I have sons?"

Lister opens his mouth to answer, but then he closes it again. Some things should stay surprises. "I think I'll let you find out on your own." He gives his past self a little wave.

Younger Lister waves back. "See you in the future."

Lister wasn't really worried about his ability to talk to himself. Rimmer's ability to talk to himself, though, is a more open question. He hopes it was all right.


	4. Together Again, for the First Time

Lister's lying on his bunk staring at the ceiling, thinking about what his future self said, when Rimmer comes back to the bunk room.

"Lister," Rimmer says, looking more awkward than usual.

"Rimmer," Lister says, feeling Rimmer-level awkward himself.

Rimmer clears his throat. "I was. I was just in the. That is."

Lister isn't sure what's happening here, but he remembers his advice from the future. "Go on. I'm listening."

That seems to surprise Rimmer. "What?"

"What happened?" Lister asks.

"I'm sure it was nothing," Rimmer says.

Lister waits. Sometimes with Rimmer, it's better to wait.

And this is one of those times, because Rimmer seems compelled to talk about what he's thinking about. "It's only that my future self showed up in the drive room and told me some things. About the future."

That surprises Lister, and he sits up. "Wait, yours was here too?"

"What do you mean, too?" Rimmer asks. "The future you was--?"

"Twenty minutes ago," Lister says.

Rimmer turns as though he's about to run off and look for future Lister, then seems to remember himself and turns back. "Oh. Well." He looks at Lister. "Do you think they were here together?"

"Maybe," Lister says. "You know how time is."

Rimmer looks annoyed. "Yes, and I wish it would stop it."

Lister can't help it. He laughs. "Me too."

Rimmer looks pleased to have done something Lister considers funny, but only for a moment. "Do you believe what yours said?"

Does Lister trust himself? He thinks so. "Yeah." But that's an interesting question. "D'you think yours lied to you?"

"I don't know what to think," Rimmer says.

"All right," Lister says. "Tell me what he said. Maybe I'll know the answer."

Rimmer shakes his head. "I can't."

"Why not?" Lister asks. "How do you know mine didn't tell me the same thing yours told you?"

It's only there for a second, but Lister sees it. Rimmer wants that to be true. But in the next second, he's shaking his head, not ready to accept even that much hope. "You wouldn't be calm. I'm not calm."

That doesn't sound promising. "What happens? Do I die?" He can't, can he? He's seen himself as a very old man.

"What? No. Well, eventually, I suppose you will, but no, that's not what he came back to tell me," Rimmer says.

"Is it you, then? Does something bad happen to you?" Lister asks.

"Lister, something bad is always happening to me. That's what life is," Rimmer says. "But no, as it happens. He didn't say that either."

Maybe it's because his future self told him to listen, but Lister hears the bleakness in Rimmer's words in a way he never has before. Something bad is always happening? It must be smegging awful feeling like that all the time. "Well then what?"

"He says I. You. We." Rimmer points to Lister, then at himself, then back and forth repeatedly as though Lister could make some sort of message out of all the pointing. "We're together. In his time."

Biggest anticlimax in the universe. "Rimmer, we're together now."

Rimmer shakes his head. "I don't mean together." He holds his hands a metre apart. "I mean together." He brings his hands together so they're touching.

Rimmer's right. That is unexpected. "Really? You and me?"

"Feel free to be disgusted," Rimmer says.

Lister shakes his head, preoccupied. "I'm not disgusted. I'm trying to figure out how it would work when we can't touch each other." 

"You were planning to romance Kochanski," Rimmer says. "Apparently people don't have to touch to be romantic."

"That's true," Lister agrees. He hadn't thought about the details with Kochanski. Getting her back had been the goal, so he hadn't thought about what getting her back would really mean. "So the other you said we're together. You think he was lying?"

"Probably," Rimmer says. "He probably wanted to see me do something stupid."

"Rimmer, if he's you, why would he want that? Then he would've done something stupid too." Lister shrugs. "Anyway, I don't think he was lying."

He can feel Rimmer looking at him without having to see it. Lister knows what comes next--insults, denial, long lists of reasons why Rimmer wouldn't be seen dead, literally, with someone like Lister.

Instead, Rimmer says, "You don't really think it could happen?"

Lister looks at Rimmer, but Rimmer does genuinely seem to be asking the question. Not only that, he seems interested in the answer.

"Why not?" Lister asks.

Rimmer is quiet for a long, long time, and when he speaks again, he's talking to himself. "Why not?" he asks himself, his voice a mix of wonder and surprise.

Small moments can change the course of the universe. Lister wonders if this might be one of those moments.


	5. Where the Present Meets the Past

Rimmer meets Lister in the same stretch of corridor where they first found themselves in the past. "Have we done it?"

"I dunno," Lister says. "I've done me best."

Once Rimmer would've made a snide joke about that. Now, he nods and takes Lister's hand. "Then I'm sure that's enough."

Lister smiles at Rimmer, but his expression turns serious. "You seem sad."

"You should've seen his face when I told him someone loved him," Rimmer says quietly. He'd forgotten how little he'd hoped for from life--how little and how much at the same time. He'd considered a wildly successful career his due, and yet it had never occurred to him that anyone could truly care for him. It had taken him years to learn that Lister could, and did.

Lister hugs Rimmer close. "Someone does."

Rimmer doesn't say anything, but he leans into the hug. One of his favorite things about Lister is how easily he gives affection. Rimmer knows he isn't good at that, but he tries.

The halls shift around them, and Rimmer turns, instinctively reaching out to hold onto Lister. "Do you see it?"

"I do," Lister says. "Have you got any new memories or anything?"

"I don't think so," Rimmer says. "Do you?"

Lister shakes his head. "So maybe it was another universe."

Just then, another Lister comes around the corner and freezes. "Rimmer, hurry up! They're here!"

Another Rimmer races into view seconds later. "Is it them?"

"Looks like them," the other Lister confirms. "He's wearing me favourite London Jets shirt with the curry stains on."

"I'm so glad you've learnt to launder things," the other Rimmer says, giving the other Lister an affectionate look.

"You're the ones who came to see us all those years ago," the other Lister says. "Aren't you?"

"We are," Lister says.

"Good," the other Lister says. "We wanted to say thank you."

"Thank Dave," Rimmer says, looking at his Lister. "He wanted to stop us being lonely." He turns his gaze to the other Rimmer, wanting him to understand.

The other Rimmer nods. "He did stop it." He slides his arm around the other Lister. "Truly."

The other Lister looks at both of them, kindness in his eyes. "Thank you. Both of you." He holds up his hand, showing off a ring. The other Rimmer lifts his hand to show a matching one. "It's been five years now."

"Congratulations," Lister says, beaming.

"Jim and Bexley would thank you too, but they're a bit busy now," the other Rimmer says.

"You've still got your boys with you?" Lister asks, his hand finding Rimmer's. Rimmer knows how much his Lister misses his kids. "That's brilliant."

"We don't have long," the other Lister says, and Rimmer can see that they're already fading from view. "But we hoped we'd see you."

"Take care of each other," Rimmer says, and it's both a wish and a promise.

The other Rimmer smiles. "We have." He looks at his Dave. "We will." And they're gone.

"They turned out all right in the end," Lister says, a husky quality to his voice.

"Are you sorry we didn't get to be them?" Rimmer asks.

"Never," Lister says. "I wouldn't trade you for anything."

"Neither would I," Rimmer says, a bit relieved.

Lister smiles at him. "You called me Dave."

"Yes. That's your name," Rimmer says.

Lister laughs. "Yeah, but you never call me that."

"Is it okay?" Rimmer asks.

"Course it is," Lister says. "What do you fancy, Arnold? Arn? Arnie? A.J.?"

"I'll have to think about that," Rimmer says. "Probably not A.J. It makes me sound like your talking horse sidekick."

"Right," Lister says with a grin.

Rimmer slips his arm around Lister's shoulders. If his other self can learn to show affection this way, so can he. "We haven't had any visits from our future."

"We'll see what happens when we get there," Lister says. "Like always."

Rimmer gives Lister a shy kiss. "Let's start now."

Lister laughs. "I'm ready when you are."

When he's with Lister like this, Rimmer finally feels ready. For anything.


End file.
